


What the Past Brought

by thewhoreofhighgarden



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I cried writing this just so you all know, I just wish this would happen for Jon, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Jon Snow sees his mother, R plus L equals J, kind of fluffy but mostly sad, turned into a multi-chapter fic oops, wise bran is wise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 05:25:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7605238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewhoreofhighgarden/pseuds/thewhoreofhighgarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon is disturbed by the revelation of his parentage. Bran shows him a vision to help him understand.</p><p>(basically a story about Jon and everyone else coping with R + L = J)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Little Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if the timeline of the flashback is perfectly in sync with Robert's Rebellion but I have elected not to give a fuck. I hope you enjoy this with tears and ice cream like I did. All typos and mistakes are mine.

It was absurd, the way his blood could not stop rushing in his ears. He sat in the Godswood, a place of peace and contemplation, and yet he wished to scream into the snow swirled sky above and tear the branches from the heart tree, to anger the gods as they’d angered him. Who had they made him now? _Still a bastard. Always a bastard._

“Jon.”

He turned from his place and saw Bran, assisted by Meera Reed. Her father had come to Winterfell with them and told him the news not hours before, confirmed by Howland’s own eyes all those years ago and Bran’s visions. _I am the product of a crime. The product of rape. The evidence that a beloved daughter of Winterfell was savaged by a mad Targaryen prince. No wonder father could hardly bear to look at me sometimes._ “Bran, I’m in no state for this. Leave me.”

“You need to see, Jon.” Meera brings Bran closer, but stays silent as he speaks. “You must see what the past brought to understand what the future will bring.”

“I can’t make with your damn riddles, Bran! I understand! I’m a bastard, same as ever. We’ll tell the high lords tomorrow, and crown you King. You’ve more right to be King in the North than I do.” _I’ve no right to sit the seat of the old Kings of Winter. I’m not of winter anymore. I never have been._

Bran’s face remains impassive, “I will not be the King. You are the King, and more than that. Let me show you why.” At that, Jon’s anger simmers low. Show him? How could he mean to show him? “Come, Jon.” Bran gestures to the base of the heart tree where Meera has brought him to lay. “Let me show you and bring you peace.”

His whole body feels heavy as he stands and moves to sit beside his cousin. Jon remembers the last he saw of him before this day, when he was still just a little boy, in a deep sleep from his fall, pale, and on the brink of death. Bran is nearly a man grown now, the weariness and faraway look in his eyes altogether new and familiar to Jon. Then, he reaches for the ever-watching face of the heart tree and a shiver visibly wracks his crippled body, his eyes rolling back in his head to reveal only white.

Jon balks and turns to Meera, “What’s wrong with him?! Why are his eye-” and before he can finish his sentence, he feels Bran’s other hand grasp at his temple and everything goes black.

He opens his eyes again with a flare of his nostrils, new air touching his lungs. Air untouched by the harsh chill of winter, the air of a sweet blooming spring. It’s the first thing he notices.

The next is that he is no longer sitting, but standing, surrounded by trees of green and the quiet hum of a forest. Jon only notices Bran beside him when his cousin touches his elbow. “Jon, it’s alright.”

Bran is standing on his own two feet and the sight makes Jon’s heart contract painfully. But before he can utter a word he hears a shrill shriek from somewhere behind him. He turns to see a woman running in the distance, headed straight for them, and the sight nearly knocks him to the ground. He thinks, absurdly, _Arya, it’s Arya,_ but as she runs closer, he realizes it can’t be true. Her cheekbones are higher, her hair to her waist, and while he doesn’t know what Arya would look like now were she alive, he knows this girl isn’t her. Her gait is so quick that she’s gaining on them impossibly, and he sees a wild glint in her slate grey eyes as she runs, the skirts of her pale blue Northern dress slashed at the knees to reveal laced boots and breeches underneath.

“That’s her, Jon. Lyanna. Your mother.” Bran’s voice sounds very far away though he is only just beside him and Jon cannot speak, he cannot move. Here he stands, being granted the one thing he’s wanted since he could ever remember wanting anything. A glimpse of his mother.

“You will not catch me!” she calls behind her, though she slows and bends, clutching her waist with labored breaths. Ducking behind a tree, she hides from some unseen threat, and Jon cannot help himself but to move closer to her. Just feet away from Lyanna he gazes, drinking in her sharp features, her long dark hair, seeing himself reflected. The Northern look in her balms the ache that began with the revelation that Eddard Stark was not his father; winter _does_ dwell inside him, it must, for all its storms and frozen fury seem to personify this girl before him.

Bran walks to stand just behind him, and says with reverence, “They called her the she-wolf of Winterfell. Had father talked of her, he would have told you that she was honest and kind and brave, just like you, Jon. You have always been your mother’s son.”

His eyes sting at the last words. _My mother’s son._ All of the glares he endured from Lady Catelyn, the times he heard sneered in his direction _motherless bastard,_ the ache he felt as a boy when he would lie away at night and let himself weep for what he did not have, all felt rectified in this moment. He was not motherless. His mother was here, in the past, undiscovered and unspoken. He found he loved her fiercely, then, all at once. _Lyanna Stark. My mother._

“I shall!” A voice calls in the distance, a low, musical baritone, “You cannot hide from me, Lyanna!” Jon turns and sees a glint of silver in the trees far off, armor of black and red glinting in the distance.

“No…” he breathes, an understanding dawning on him. He is watching his mother being caught by his father, and Jon feels such an explosive hatred he thinks he may combust.

Bran seems to sense this and lays a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not what you think, Jon.”

Jon turns on him, any thanks he felt he would bestow for the chance to see his mother fading as quickly as it arose, “Why would you bring me here, to see this? He stole her, he _raped_ her-” a twig snapping underfoot swings his attention back around, and there stands the dragon prince himself. He is tall and handsome, the furrow of his long brow strangely familiar. His silver hair catches the light where it is pulled back from his face, and Jon is shocked to realize that while his coloring is of his mother, his features are an echo of Rhaegar. Furious, he marches closer to where the man stands, unable to see his grown son and how he burns with rage. They are the exact same height. “How _dare_ you!” Jon yells, rearing back to punch him, absurd and impossible it may be. His elbow is caught by Bran.

“Jon, wait! Wait and see.”

Another shriek comes from Lyanna’s direction, but this one sounds different, followed by a long peal of melodic laughter. She tears from behind the tree and runs in front of them, in front of Rhaegar, so close Jon swears he feels the tip of her hair brush his cheek. Rhaegar catches her as she goes by and lifts her off the ground with an arm flexing across her small waist, his smile wide and unbridled, looking so out of place on his dour face. He twirls her in the air as they both laugh. “I’ve captured you, my lady.” He murmurs in her ear, so quiet Jon is surprised he hears it at all. And Lyanna smiles.

Jon feels like he cannot breathe. His mother turns in the arms of the dragon prince and laces her fingers at the back of his head as she faces him. “That you have, your grace. A fine prize awaits you.” Her smile is all mirth and sunshine as she rises on the tips of her toes to press her lips to his, as though she has done it a thousand times before. Jon is mesmerized.

Behind him, Bran whispers, “Rhaegar loved his lady Lyanna. Your parents loved each other. The horror, the war, Father hiding your existence from King Robert…it was all for love.”

Jon gapes at the sight before him and his cousin’s words. Everything he thought about where he began and who he was had been wrong. He was not proof of Ned Stark’s dishonor. He was proof of the love he held for his sister. He was not the product of rape and horror. He was the product of a forbidden and idealistic love.

Lyanna halts the kiss and lays her head against Rhaegar’s chest, eyes closing as he wraps her in his arms and presses his lips to her hair. “Why can we not send a raven to my father? Tell him I came willingly. Tell him why?”

Rhaegar presses his eyes shut, pained, before clearing his throat and speaking. “He would not believe the words, even if they were of your own hand. He would think it forcibly written, and it may anger him more and draw him south. If we can help it, we must keep the wolves in the North.”

“I am a wolf.” She murmurs against his armor, eyes opening, and for a moment, Jon could swear she looks directly at him, directly in his eyes. “And we are not in the North.”

Rhaegar takes his her small chin in his fingers and raises her gaze to his. “You are a princess now, Lyanna. My wife.”

“Your _second_ wife.” Lyanna pulls herself out of his arms and walks across the small clearing they stand in, her back to her husband.

 _They were wed. They were wed._ Jon follows after her, grasping a tree for balance.

“Targaryens-“

“-have had multiple wives for thousands of years, I know, Rhaegar. It is an older way. But my family keep to the _oldest_ of ways. The old gods curse those who break their laws, and we broke one in their sight before a heart tree! I am an oathbreaker and a philanderer in their eyes. It is not so easy a truth to swallow.” She stares sullenly at the grass and sinks to the ground to sit with an unrefined grace.

Jon stands there, halfway between his mother and father, and finally he understands. The red of Rhaegar’s armor, alight with the sun, and the blue of this mother’s dress making her eyes look almost more than grey, these two unlikely opposites drawn together by some invisible thread, some stroke of fate. He understands something nameless, something about these people who live in myth and legend. _What is honor, compared to a woman’s love? What is duty, against the feel of a newborn son in your arms?_ Maester Aemon’s words drift across his mind, _the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory and our great tragedy._

“You know the other truth. The reason why, Lyanna. We are fated, written in the stars, wrought together by the gods themselves. The Long Night is coming, and only a song of ice and fire will save us. Our song.” Lyanna turns to him and her eyes are full of tears.

“Will I see my family again? My father, my brothers?” Jon’s heart leaps into his throat at the raw hope in her eyes. _Oh, mother. I am so sorry. I am so sorry you died so I might live._

Something like regret flickers across Rhaegar’s face for just a second before bores his eyes into hers, seemingly confident. “When I am King you shall have everything your heart desires, Lyanna, anything that is in my power to give you _will_ be yours. Your family will always be welcome at court. Once we go South and depose my father, all will be well again.” He walks in front of Jon and kneels before where Lyanna sits. “And one day the dragon will have three heads, because of the sacrifice you have made. You are so brave, my love.” Leaning forward, Rhaegar kisses her forehead reverently.

She dimly smiles and nods before asking, “Might I have a moment to myself before we ride again?”

Rhaegar makes a face of slight discontent but stands. “Of course. I will not be far.” And with that he leaves, across the clearing and into the trees from which he came, Lyanna’s eyes following. But Jon’s eyes do not follow him. He gazes at his mother, who, sitting up straighter, has come to cradle her stomach, looking fondly down.

“It’s just us, little dragon.” Her voice is low and quiet, and for a strange moment Jon feels as though she must be talking to him, before he realizes…

It hits him, then, that unbeknownst to Rhaegar she is already pregnant with him. She will soon find out that the future her husband has laid before them is just a dream, that her family has in fact gone south to meet a horrible end. He wonders when his father will tell her the unsavory truth that he must already have some inkling of. Perhaps he did love her; but he lied to her, and miscalculated vastly. If only…

“I love you, little dragon.” She whispers to her stomach. Jon walks forward and falls to his knees before her, where his father knelt seconds before, heart singing, “You don’t have to be the third head of anything. Whoever you are, whatever you do, I will always love you.” Jon savors the sound of her voice and the look of complete adoration on her face.

“I love you too, mother. How sorry I am that I will never know you more than this.” He says to her, though she does not turn her head back up at his words.

Bran speaks behind him. Jon had nearly forgotten he was there. “She cannot hear you, Jon.” His voice is full of woe.

Jon nods, and lifts his hand to ghost along Lyanna’s high cheekbone. “I know.”


	2. I Am No Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon reveals the truth to Sansa.

Jon sits by the low fire in his chambers later that night, staring at the crackling embers vacantly. He meant to have himself a good brood about what is to be done. True, he is still a Stark, and he was only ever believed to be half-Stark anyways. The Northern Lords had planned to rally behind him as a Snow, bastard or not, because of that Stark blood. But carrying the name Targaryen could change everything; he’s never been south of the Neck, but the blood of his father could expel him from favor in the North.

He sighs. It isn’t as though he wanted to be king, or even the Lord of Winterfell. He’d meant it when he told Stannis months before that Winterfell belonged to Sansa by right, because it did. She was a trueborn Stark, now more than ever. He may convince them to crown her Queen, and stay on as her Hand, still able to lead the fight against the Others, but under her name. If he’d had anything resembling a plan before they defeated Ramsay Bolton, that’s what he might have imagined. Never this. Never being named the White Wolf and King in the North. Though, now, he saw the irony in it. The White Wolf, a Targaryen. A chuckle bursts forth from his chest, but it is a gravelly, humorless sound.

Rhaegar had looked like a true prince, contrary to what he’d been raised believing. When he’d cared to picture him as a child from the whispers and stories, which was not often, he’d pictured a screeching dragon, angry and mad with power as his father was. Someone more like Joffrey than himself. But something about the air around his father when he’d seen him in that vision told him it wasn’t true in even the slightest sense. He exuded a sort of calm confidence, almost gentle were it not for the reputation he had for being a fierce fighter. Jon had heard tales of how finely skilled Rhaegar was in battle. Jon wondered, did his talent for the sword come from his father?

According to Bran, it may well have come from his mother too, though supposedly she was a better rider than fighter for lack of training. He pictures her on a horse, like an extension of her own legs, tearing through the countryside like fire on a sunny day. For a single moment he pictures himself riding beside her, and he nearly smiles.

A knock on his door tears him from his thoughts. “Jon?” he recognizes his sister’s voice. Or, rather, cousin. He’s barely gotten used to being close to Sansa as her brother, and now not even that was true.

“Come in.” He doesn’t move his eyes from the fire to greet her beyond that; he knows he does not have to. Though only he, Bran, Meera, and Howland Reed know the truth of his terrible temperament that day, it had been no secret that the King in the North was not in the best of spirits.

“Bran said I might let you alone to think, but I was worried.” Sansa moves to sit in the chair opposite him. It is late but she has not yet dressed for bed, doubtlessly because she’s been moving about the castle in a rush to accommodate their new guests and take up her role as the Lady of Winterfell with no small amount of work. Today she’d been working tirelessly to prepare Bran’s old rooms for him again, wishing for him to feel like Winterfell was a true home and not the ruin of one. “I thought you might be glad he’s returned to us. If you’re worried about your position, he’s assured me he has no wish to usurp you, only to be home-”

“I know that, Sansa. I wouldn’t care even if he did. I wouldn’t care if you wanted to be Queen and rule the North. It should have been you anyways.”

That quiets her. He can feel her staring at him, but he won’t meet her eyes. He can’t, for if he does, he will break apart and tell her the truth of his distress, and then how will she see him? He imagines she only just became used to not despising him for his parentage, and their tenuous sibling relationship was in full bloom. Having someone rely on him, and relying on her in return had been immensely healing. He felt a fool for not seeing it before they took back Winterfell, that Sansa was no little sister to be protected, but a formidable woman that he was fortunate to have at his side. “I’ve no desire to be the Queen, Jon. You’ve given me my only desire, which was to be home. And we are home now. Together again, with Bran as well. Remember when Father used to say, the lone wolf dies but the pack-”

“I am no wolf.” He says. _Little dragon,_ Lyanna’s voice whispers in his mind, _I love you little dragon._

“Of _course_ you are. You’re a Stark as much as I or Bran and I’ll not have you continue to devalue yourself by saying otherwise.” Her voice whips through the room like a winter wind, and it is then that he looks at her. She places her hand over his own. “Please, call yourself a Stark, Jon. It pains me that you do not.”

 _It pains me that I can’t._ “Sansa, Bran brought news with him.” Her eyes shift in worry.

“Arya?”

He clears his throat, willing the face of his other sister-cousin from his mind. “No news of Arya. Sansa, Bran has had…visions. The greensight.”

She nods, “He mentioned some of this to me while we spoke. About the heart trees and the Others and what is to come. He said he could see the past. He said-” her eyes cast down, “He said he saw when Father was murdered. That he could hear me sometimes as I’d cry myself to sleep. That he catches glimpses of Arya, somewhere in Essos. He described these things with such accuracy…it seems almost impossible, but what is outside the realm of the possible now? They say the Targaryen woman is crossing the sea with dragons larger than her biggest ships.” Jon swallows, but does not speak. He had hardly even given thought to the fact that he was not the only Targaryen in the world. _She is my aunt._ “An army of the dead marches on the Wall. And you returned from the dead at the hands of the Red Woman. It seems many things I once thought impossible are not.”

“It seems that way.” He whispers, unable to meet her gaze. Jon pulls his hand out from under hers to rest his face in his palms, exasperated. How could he possibly explain this to her?

Her voice is low and full of worry. “Please tell me what is bothering you Jon. Tell me what is wrong. You said we need to trust each other.” Sansa drank in a breath, “I know I haven’t acted as though I trust you, but I’m going to start. I’m going to try, as best I can, because you are my brother and I want you to trust me as well.”

Jon looks at her then, her face full of yearning, and finds he cannot help but tell her the truth. “Bran told me that I am not your brother. Not truly.” Sansa’s face falls in confusion. “You saw Howland Reed today, yes?”

She nods, “Father’s bannerman. He saved his life during the Rebellion.”

He swallows, gulps in a breath, and finds it in him to continue. “Howland was with Father at the end of the war, and he has confirmed that I am not fath- that I am not Ned Stark’s son. But he told everyone that I was his son, disguised me as his bastard, so he might protect me. He took the secret to his grave. Howland is the only living person who can verify this truth.”

Sansa’s brow furrows, “I don’t understand.”

“Sansa, do you remember the story of the Tower of Joy, where they found Lyanna Stark? How they found her dying, but no one really explained _why_ she was dying?” Sansa stops moving completely at that point, her face growing even paler than it had been before.

“Gods…” she breathed, staring at him with eyes like saucers.

Jon’s face burns hot with shame, “Howland said that she made father promise her to protect me. She knew that if Robert found out-”

“He would have you murdered in a moment. As Elia Martell’s children…your siblings…Gods Jon, this is-” she sputters, “You’re Rhaegar Targaryen’s son.”

“I know.” He grits out. Now she will never see him as a true member of her family, a true Stark. “All those years your mother spent resenting him was waste, your father forced to lie to his own wife and family, his dearest friends for my sake. I caused so much pain just by my mere existence…”

“Stop!” Jon is alerted by her harsh tone as she stands in a flurry of movement. “I am so bloody tired of you saying things like that. Father made his choices because he loved his sister, and because he loved you, and you’re alive today because of it. Don’t mourn for what has been, Jon, have hope for what is.” She astounds him when she does this, finds some silver lining in a flood of horrors and agony. How can someone who has endured what Sansa has immediately find ways to see the opportunity in everything? “Jon, this is a revelation. I’ve been terrified since the ravens arrived about the Dragon Queen’s journey to Westeros, wringing my hands day and night, sometimes paralyzed by this fear that she will come North when she finishes with King’s Landing and raze Winterfell to the ground, but this changes everything! Jon, you are her blood!”

“Yes, I am her blood. Her brother’s son, someone she’ll likely see as competition for the throne. They say her horselord husband killed her brother Viserys before she made a claim for Westeros.”

“Perhaps, but if you lay no claim to the South and wish to stay in the North, it would be unwise of her to deny you. She will need the love of the people to rule in the South and kinslaying fosters no such love. You are the King in the North and bound to her by blood.”

Jon sighs. “I may not be when the other Lords find out this truth. I may still be half-Stark, but I am not Eddard’s son. Perhaps it would be wiser to crown you in my place and be done with it.”

Sansa scowls, and drags the chair she formerly sat in so that it faces Jon directly before sitting down again, their knees bumping together as she takes his hands. “I do not want to be the Queen. Littlefinger had made it apparent that he means to use my claim on the North to usurp the South, and if I am Queen I play directly into his hands. It is safer in every way for you to remain the King. If Daenerys comes North, she will not harm her own blood, but she might harm me if I sit the Northern throne. She sees the Starks as traitors.” She casts her glance down to where she holds both of their hands together. “They say Tyrion Lannister is at her side, and I have always known him to be a good man. When we were wed in King’s Landing, he protected me as best he could and refused to consummate the marriage because he knew it was not what I wanted. I cannot see him serving a Queen he does not believe will do some good in this world.”

Jon is silent for a moment, before he ventures, “Didn’t he murder his father on the privy?”

There is a beat of quiet before Sansa snorts in a most unladylike fashion and laughs. _Laughs_ at the mention of kinslaying. He finds it so absurd that she is amused that before long, he joins her in laughter. When the chuckles subside, she speaks. “I daresay he did, but never was there a more ruthless, vile plotter than Tywin Lannister. It is good that he is dead. With him died any hope for the Lannisters, the awful ones anyways. Cersei is driving the South to madness in his absence. I suspect there will be little for your Aunt to conquer by the time she arrives, if King’s Landing is anything more than the ashes that remain after wildfire.”

“Let the South burn.” He dismisses, bringing a smile to Sansa’s face.

They both go quiet for a little while after this, hands still entwined, faces only slightly illuminated by the firelight and the rays of the moon that strike through his window. He feels some of the weight he carried lifted, and is reminded why he loves his sister, now cousin, most dearly. She is what Winterfell is, both a place and a person, somewhere he feels comfortable and safe. “This changes the game for us, Jon.” Sansa finally says, “But it does not change the fact that you are my family and my blood. Dragon or wolf or both, your place is here in Winterfell with us. I know Bran agrees. And Arya will as well, when she comes home. You’ll see. All will be well.”

Jon brings her knuckles to his mouth and kisses them before pulling her close to wrap her in his arms, an unspoken thanks. Targaryen or not, she is right. His place is with her and Bran, and Arya when she returns. No revelations of the past or Dragon Queen or disapproval of the Northern Lords will change that. Finally, he breathes again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy blazing mothballs, I am blown away by the response I got to the first chapter. Y'all are just big ass rays of sunshine, I sincerely thank you for your comments and kudos. You inspired me to write a second chapter! I never imagined broody Jon being so much fun to write. I originally meant to stick another vision in there but Jon needed to deal with some feels so I threw in a platonic Jonsa chapter instead. I originally intended for this to be a one-shot but I find I really enjoy writing it, so if y'all want me to continue I will! Also if anyone has specific requests for Bran's fancy vision flashback stuff I am open to all suggestions. Much love to all readers <3


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